This invention relates to the handling of articles such as magazines, periodicals, or the like and more particularly to apparatus and method for receiving piles of magazines from an input line such as a conveyor and feeding them in a controlled manner to an output line such as a trimmer infeed conveyor.
In the art of making magazines and the like, the individual magazines are formed by assembling signatures and conveying them to a binder for binding into magazines. The magazines are then stacked into piles and the piles are conveyed to a trimmer for further operations thereon. The trimmer is normally capable of operation at a higher rate than the upstream equipment so that flow to the trimmer is continuous. Occasionally, however, the trimmer will malfunction. Such malfunctions may require only a very short time to remedy, but, magazine piles will accumulate on the trimmer infeed very quickly. One method for handling such an accumulation is to shut down the upstream equipment until the trimmer malfunction is corrected and clear the accumulation manually.